


you and i were born not to die but live

by clizzyhours



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 3.20, Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/F, Isabelle’s POV, Izzy is low key intrigued by dark!clary, Mention of Gore, Sexual Tension, Swords, Tension, Violence, Weapons, dark!clary to a degree, missing scene mayhaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 14:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19929274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clizzyhours/pseuds/clizzyhours
Summary: “Isabelle holds Glorious in the strap attached around her black peplum leather jacket, red lips pursed and ready for confrontation.She has to be.”Isabelle does what she must to save Clary.





	you and i were born not to die but live

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: girlfriends with swords but also not quite? team orange. warnings: blood. gore. violence. like typical Shadowhunter canon violence. 
> 
> thank you so much for reading! pls check out the rest of the bingo fics.

Isabelle holds Glorious in the strap attached around her black peplum leather jacket, red lips pursed and ready for confrontation.

She has to be.

Clary’s eyes flash black and the Morgernstern smirks she wears suits her fierce complexity. She’s pretty and full of indestructibility but oh, she knows how this will end.

“Clary; this isn’t you,” She says, sidestepping around Clary’s sudden flash of the Morgernstern sword, gleaming brightly in the cool atmosphere.

The ground is cool and the frost crunches under her black heeled boots. 

“And what makes you think you ever knew me at all?” Clary’s face is dark, eyes flashing and teeth bared. It’s her. It’s not.

Isabelle holds her breath, stares with fathomless eyes.

“I took you in and I will never regret it,” She says instead, ducking between Clary’s sudden twirl. She moves quickly akin to Isabelle’s uncoiled electrum whip when she hunts down her enemies and pierces their hearts.

Isn’t that the truth? Hearts hurt the most. They are one of the most gentle and fragile parts of the human body. If you were to carve a heart out, it would be bloody and limp and if you wanted to strike somebody, to hurt and maim and murder - the heart is the best way.

Hurts are breakable and she knows that more than most people.

Isabelle dances to the side and slowly unsheathes the Glorious sword, shiny and piercing and built with her tender but careful hands from the Iron Sister’s tools she now possesses. 

Clary’s red eyebrow is arched and she makes it look impossibly attractive. “So you came alone?” 

Of course, she came alone. She does not trust anyone else but herself with this task, with capturing Clary and piercing the hideous black mark until it’s gone, incinerated into nothingness.

She meant what she said to Clary - she will kill Jonathan with her bare hands but first, she has a more important avenue. 

Saving Clary.

Isabelle blinks her dark eyes slowly, turns in a slow, sluggish circle. Clary matches her pace.

The sword is in her arms, fingers tracing the engraved runes. Strong magic flows in the steel and she unfurls a smirk of her own.

She did this.

Clary is still looking and the tension between them is palpable. “Oh,” She murmurs, her dark eyes flashing to Isabelle’s lips.

Oh, indeed.

No distractions, she tells herself and prepares.

Clary strikes again but this time, Isabelle is prepared. She brings Glorious down with viper speed, the changing of steel and iron reverberating in the icy forest.

Pure silence rings around them. No mundane or Shadowhunter or Downworld activity, no scurrying squirrels or hidden predators in the once thick bushes.

The environment is unfriendly and unforgiving with skeletal like branches clawing at the sky, frosted surface, and wintry temperatures.

They clang again, Morgernstern sword meeting Glorious sword.

“You know - “ Clary begins. “The rush of power I have is indescribable. The power I possess? It’s everything.” She lets out a huff of a laugh, a dark undercurrent running through like a river.

“Even if it’s burns you from the inside?” Isabelle says, moving and sidestepping again.

Clary’s eyes narrow.

“Will you go out in a blazing glory to save me?” 

Isabelle does not hesitate.

“Yes,” She says like it’s everything, like she could not imagine another possibility.

Clary lets out a hmm, a mere hum. They continue their dance, slow and predatory-like, green turned demonic and brown dark eyes burning with determination.

It’s almost intimate. A fucked up Hades and Persephone tale where Hades has gone completely dark and Persephone turns her back on everything she has known to save her.

And she has.

There’s no going back.

Isabelle brings her sword down impeccably fast and brings her leg out to kick Clary to the ground.

Clary doesn’t stumble. A burning sense of curiosity has lit up her expression and she makes her next attack rapidly.

She strikes again and again and again until Isabelle is nearly stumbling, feet struggling to find purchase.

“Aren’t you a better fighter?” She says, demands.

“Where have you been, dear Isabelle?”

Isabelle moves back with furious speed, no time to use her stele for a speed rune. She thinks of her brother and his once mantra of how Lightwood’s breaks noses and face the consequences. She thinks of her mother and her heartbreaking smile after being de-runed. The anger and betrayal she felt when Jonathan tried to murder her brothers.

Isabelle lets these emotions fuel her. Emotions are not weak, contrary to what Shadowhunters tell themselves.

She rights herself and brings Glorious sword down. It connects with the Morgernstern instantaneously, flaming in two separate colors.

It’s incredible and beautiful and enthralling at once, the closeness between her and Clary, eyes staring intensely.

There’s intrigue.

Isabelle sees Clary’s move coming and she sidesteps again to avoid her full-frontal head bump.

“You are a strong Shadowhunter, Isabelle and better than everyone. Better than Alec. Better than Jace that the Clave loves to say,” Clary murmurs in awe.

“And I thought you hadn’t noticed,” A snipe but not.

“I have always noticed and I have always known. My dearest brother speaks quite fondly of you, you know, Isabelle,” Clary says.

Isabelle. Isabelle. Isabelle. A continuous mantra and Izzy lets this renew her.

“Well, it’s too bad, I want him dead, isn’t it?” She strikes again.

Clary tuts softly. “We can’t have that, can we?”

“If you’re so powerful, Clarissa, then wouldn’t you be better off alone?”

Her eyes narrow. “Morgernstern’s are better together.”

“I don’t think you really believe that.”

Isabelle moves again and again again, the Glorious in-tune with her movements.

She’s preparing for the final strike.

“You are so much more than your brother, Clary. I once said you will have always me. I keep my word.”

Isabelle surges like a cobra snake. She brings Glorious down and kicks Clary. The Morgernstern’s sword clatters several feet away as Clary stumbles slightly out of shock.

She quickly uncoils her whip and throws, slicing through the air in a perfect arc. Her whip furls around Clary’s wrists again and again and again.

Isabelle approaches Clary like she is a skittish deer.

“You do what you must,” Izzy whispers, thinking of her mother smoothing down her hair and cupping her cheek, of Alec walking away from Magnus, of Jace and his enduring trauma by protecting himself with tightly guarded walls. Max and her father and Raphael and Meliorn, her past and present and future blending in as once.

She thinks of Clary and of her own heart.

Isabelle brings the sword down and the agonizing scream Clary makes nearly undos her.

It breaks her heart into fragments. 

Clary chokes Jonathan’s name out again and again and again, pleading a messed up lullaby. She says Isabelle in broken murmurs. Please, please, please, she hears. Help.

He doesn’t come.

She can’t. She can only kneel by and smooth down Clary’s spilling red hair, whisper words of comfort. Glorious must act - the Heavenly fire burning the darkness until no embers remain.

The noise feels long and endless and when the rune vanishes, there’s nothing but heavy panting and heartbreak.

Isabelle kneels down further and traces a stele onto Clary, healing her instantly.

“You do what you must,” Clary repeats, her eyes green and vivid and swarming with emotions.

Isabelle stares back. There’s something there, a hint, a promise, a renewal.

In the end, there’s no going back but forward.


End file.
